This is the last post that we are doing. We are including the indoor play areas – the TV room and the attic.
The TV room (internet based tv only) is technically the kids play room – but they seem to use our lounge for that more – however many times we tell them it is not allowed. The attic is definitely a great place to hang out – as long as you are small enough to stand comfortably in there……

So, on to the tv room – as you can see from the first 4 photos – the tv room used to be the bathroom and utility area for the house. This was actually the largest waste of space that we had ever seen. When we bought the house we had already planned on improving this area – we just didn’t realise by how much!

The next photo is during the demolition
The next photo is a stage that has been shown a few times – the building of the walls. You can see how much we changed the layout
The next photos show the two small windows when they were being prepared to be enlarged to 1 very large window.
The next photo shows the metal bar that was built to hang the net onto. The net itself can easily hold 4 large adults!
The last two photos here are professional photos of the finished room. The props and carpet are not ours.

On to the attic – this is the main play area for the kids.
The first photo is the attic when we bought the house (after we threw out all the rubbish)
The next 3 are during the building stage.
The last two are professional photos again – most of the props are still not ours – but the bean bag, guitar, chairs and snooker table are!

This is basically the end of the blog. We hope that you have enjoyed following our journey over the last 2 1/2 years and got a good laugh out of our stories – and maybe even some ideas about how to avoid the mistakes that we made along the way.

A slight misnomer in the title – as to be honest playtime will be the next post of this saga.
I am going to cover our study/guest room plus the family bathroom today.
Firstly an update on what’s been happening – we had over the main suppliers (and their families) for a barbecue this past week. It is nice to actually relax and socialise with people that you spend so much time working with. The reason for the year (plus) delay was that I was waiting for my smoker to arrive (plus then some time to get comfortable using it) before inviting them. Maybe not so interesting to you – but the meat menu was smoked ribs and homemade sausages plus normal (bbq) grilled sausages, burgers and chicken wings – plus the standard paraphernalia of complementary cuisine and drinks.
I am not sure if I mentioned this in the last blog – but our intercom system has stopped working. I called the alarm company that installed it and they want an annual support fee for the cameras, intercom and alarm – the price was “Al Hapanim” (“al hapanim” approximately is used for “way over the top”) – so I called the electrician that installed our network and sound system. He will come for free and check the system out – at that point we will get a price and make a decision.

On to the rooms – We will be starting with the study. This room is also used as our main guest bedroom. The main negative from this room is that it is sandwiched between the two boys rooms (one next door and the other opposite).

The first two photos show the study as it was when we bought the house. Like all the rooms – this one changed size and shape but we also completely moved the position of the cupboards as can be seen in later photos.
The next photo was the destruction of the study.
Like the phoenix – out of destruction comes rebirth (although a lot slower in this case). The photo of the walls being built is from the stairs and the study is on the right hand side of the picture. The other photo speaks for itself.
After the windows were installed I took photos of all of them. This photo below shows the light fitting as well – and so I have included it as we really struggled to find these lights. We were looking for a really common UK light fixture that uses multiple spots (3 or 4) and swivels easily to point wherever you want them. This light was the nearest that we could find. We used them in all the upstairs rooms (except the playroom)
The following two photos are professional and therefore are using “props” that we do not have or use in the house….

On to the bathroom – possibly the most used room in the house……
As normal, I am starting with the beginning. This was the area as it first was – a bedroom. This is the area that you can most easily see how much we changed the interior layout of the house. Everyone who went into the old building could not understand the waste of space that we turned into a bathroom and tv/playroom. You can see part of that transformation below.
Again, we started with the destruction and moved on to the building – not a surprise really.
Below is the first interesting feature. We had to drop the ceiling so that we could put the air conditioning manifold in this area. Every air conditioning pipe for every unit in the house is connected here – that is 9 units in the house plus the compressor unit of the roof.
The bath was almost the first thing installed – this is shown after protection in the photo below.
The photo below shows the area which will become our utility room – it is small, but has plenty of storage. The only thing missing is a sink – but it is next to the bathroom so there isn’t far to go.
After installing the bath we started the tiling. This can be seen in the two photos below.
Below is our sink and vanity unit.
The following 3 photos are professional and so once again have props that are not ours. Our bathroom in real life does not look like it is in an expensive restaurant or hotel – honest (especially after the kids’ rushed morning ablutions….)

That’s all for today.

This is possibly the penultimate post. The next post will include the 2 indoor play areas. Depending on the number of photos I may include photos of the roof. I may include it in another post.
We have not covered in this blog the rental unit that we have downstairs.

Generally a productive week, hopefully with more to come over the next couple of weeks. The place has to be livable in 5 weeks’ time with tenants moving in in 3 weeks’ time. Now the pressure is going to start to build as everything is still waiting on …..

Windows – This was the step back. They were supposed to be at the supplier’s warehouse today, but there was a port strike in Haifa and the bad weather closed the port once the strike was over. We do know that the ship arrived on Tuesday – the day the strike started. We do not know if the windows came off the ship and are awaiting customs – or still on the boat. If still on the boat – then it is not still in the port as due to high winds all boats were sent out into the open sea. Once the port opens properly there will be a backlog – no idea for how long, nor where we are in the “queue”. On the good side – the windows are basically here and they weren’t travelling on snow laden roads in a truck. That really is a scenario we don’t want to think about. We have a week of good (or better) weather predicted from Motsei Shabbat and hopefully we will be able to start the work during this time. Everything “movable” is waiting on the windows and doors so that we have security in the house.

Doors – More problems with Hermetix. Tamar has told us they were causing trouble but will not elaborate further. It was something to do with the protective staining on the interior wood of the front door. They were probably asking for some more money and thought it was acceptable to provide unprotected wooden finishes with the Israeli sun and heat. We still haven’t been given the internal sample door to approve and time is moving on. Supposedly the front door will be installed on the 4th March with the internal doors on the 8th and 9th. As tenants are moving in on the 9th we really need them to manage these dates.

Garden – The gardener has returned from holidays in Thailand, China and Eilat (the life of a gardener during shmitta seems quite nice!) and has built the pond outside our bedroom and will be finishing off this water feature soon. He has carried up the stepping stone tiles as well which will be laid in the near future. He is looking into a price of a guillotine for us to cut up the logs in a lot quicker fashion.

Electricity/Rubbish Boxes – These were finished off with a little tiling and the current electricity box was put into the rubbish bin area. I called Yaniv (the Kablan) to ask why it was done this way – and he explained that we are actually getting a new (smaller) box from the electricity company which will go in the other area. Until then we cannot use the area for the bin!

Electricity – The electricity company finally received the last email that I sent them with my approval signature and they told me that I had to go to their office to pay due to the large amount. I finally did so on Wednesday. The Kablan said that the electricity company are allowed to change the price (always upwards) until the bill is paid. Afterwards they will not change the price – even if it costs them an extra 50,000 NIS for digging up roads etc. We are glad that we have paid. We now just have to wait for them to do all the work – which will probably be after we move in to the property.

Railings – The outside front railings were re-measured and the design re-finalised this week. The inside stair railings are in with a couple of provisos. The wooden handle has not been installed – it will be last after all painting is completed – and the extra supports which stop the railings from moving have not been installed either – so these railings are currently not safely useable. This will be fixed soon.

Hammock – The railin was installed – but was enough askew (supposedly due to a metal bar in the wall) that is was obviously not straight. When measured we noticed that on one edge there was a 1.5cm drop between the centre and the side. This has now been corrected and the actual hammock has been ordered. It will be available in about 2 weeks but will only go in after everything else in the room is completed – so that it does not get damaged by paint or air-con and other electrical (tv/speakers/lights etc) installations.

Downstairs Kitchen – They took away and replaced the cupboards that were the wrong size. The counter top is being installed on Sunday. One of the cupboard doors has got some paint on it – so it will up to the Kablan to clean this effectively or replace it.

Upstairs Kitchen – Our kitchen cupboard shells have been put in. The only doors that have been included are the pocket doors on the tall cupboard next to the fridge freezer. The other doors will be installed just before we move in to stop the workers using the kitchen as we are planning to move into a kosher for Pesach kitchen with absolutely no work. We are spending all this money – we might as well have some additional benefit from it! When the counter top person installs the downstairs Caesar-stone he will also measure our kitchen for the tops. The carpenter also took a sample handle so that he can put holes in the cupboard doors back in the workshop where there is more control.

Bathrooms – All the carpentry units for the bathrooms are ready and most of them have been installed. The guest toilet vanity and our en-suite units look fantastic. The boys’ bathroom unit is waiting to be installed – but is in the house.

Next Carpentry step – Dany the carpenter (actually a good English speaker) is coming on Monday to measure and finalise the aquarium unit. I am assuming that Tamar managed to arrange for Yaniv and Uri (Aquarium guy) to be there as well. At the same time they will finalise options for around the fireplace.

Painting – Almost the whole house now has a coat or two of paint. Natanel’s room is Man City sky blue (nobody’s perfect 🙂 ) and Ya’akov’s room is a really nice pastel green – he obviously now wants blue like his brother. We said hard luck!

Network – We were obviously charged a little bit extra to replace all the wiring as we have had to move the network cables but this has been done now. The advantage is that I now have about 30m of cat7 cable which I should be able to use to make spare ethernet cables (I would usually use cat 5 – but should work just as well). I already have ethernet connectors (rj45) and the appropriate crimping tool to do this myself. The additional dropped ceiling to transfer the wires has been added. It actually makes the entrance look more finished.

Moldings – These are being installed at the beginning of this week.

Furniture – Tamar has gathered together all the info for ordering the material we need for ottomans, chairs, piano stool and cushions etc. This order – with an order for the specific ottomans to connect our sofas will be going in today or Sunday.

Smoker/etc – I have made absolutely no progress on arranging the shipping of this (and a few other items). I really need to do this next week. If anyone out there can give us a lead for a reliable shipper from Austin, Texas it would really be appreciated…

We think that is it. We really did not realise we have so little time left until we have to move in. No wonder that Tamar is getting worried and pushing everyone constantly. We understand that not everything will be finished by the time that we move in – but the basics will be. The more utilitarian carpentry (like bookcases) will be completed afterwards. We have no choice but to move in as we have 6 friends coming to stay with us on the day that we move in!
Having space for guests to stay is an integral part of our house that we have sorely missed over the last five years.

As you can gather from the title, we have been having fun with the electric company since the last blog. Other than that everything is moving forward slowly but steadily as planned. We specifically do not want to be rushing forward as the Kablan doesn’t like stopping in the middle of a job – nor does he want to leave the house empty without windows or doors.

Front wall – I will start with the front and move backwards from there. We have cut into the front wall and made a couple of concrete boxes. One of these is for the electricity box which and the other is for the bin (garbage can for those needing a translation 🙂 ). We had a discussion with the Kablan about the advantages and disadvantages of putting a cover on these boxes. The main advantages are that the kids can use the cover as a seat plus it stops people walking on the street using it as a dumping ground. The disadvantage is that we will have to leave the house to be able to throw out the rubbish. We pointed out to the Kablan that we were having metal railings over this area – so even without a cover we would have to leave the house anyway. We have a cover.

Electricity – We were told that we haven’t signed the document permitting the electricity company to do the work. They said that we had been sent it – but we couldn’t find it. So, they tried to send it to my fax – which didn’t accept it due to a transmission error. So they sent it again. After a week I hadn’t received it and so I called again. I was actually working from home so I arranged for it to be faxed to my work and a colleague scanned it in and emailed it to me. I printed it – and we hadn’t received it before. I took it to my Kablan to check everything and he couldn’t believe the price, so he directly called the engineer that did the site check to confirm there were no mistakes. The engineer noted that he had actually given us a large discount as the Kablan was doing some of the work for him. The price was unfortunately correct. We faxed the form – it wasn’t received. We emailed it – and I when I checked to confirm that it had arrived – I was informed that the address I was given was incorrect and to send it to the correct address. It was bounced back. I faxed it again – this time from work – and it failed again. I looked at the email that was bounced back and realised that I had a number incorrect. I sent it again but haven’t confirmed that it had arrived. I didn’t confirm as I was told that the amount I had to pay was so high that I could not do it over the phone – so I will be going to their offices to pay with the form in hand – just in case. That will be next week. We may get this moving soon, we can live with what we have as long as we do not need to heat up the whole house at the same time.

Doors – The sample door has still not arrived. We should be able to approve it towards the end of next week. They have confirmed installation of the front door for the 4th March and the interior doors on the 8th and 9th. Let’s see if they manage. I am not holding my breath – but we do need the front door in by the 8th at the latest.

Tiling – The outside stairs are basically finished. There are a few edging tiles which need to be replaced and as these edging tiles have been cut at an angle to follow the wall the kablan has ordered some 33cm tiles so that the tiles abutting the edge tiles line up correctly.

Handles – We confirmed, ordered and (just) collected our handles for our kitchen. As we struggled so much to find handles that we liked, we took the same handles for the vanity in the en-suite bathroom which is the only other place that we need handles.

Kitchen – After many calls and discussions between us, Tamar and Dany (the carpenter) the kitchen is almost completed. It will be installed on Wednesday. The carpenter has found a metal grill which can be painted white to put above the fridge and freezer which will look better than a big gap or a wooden trellis style cover.

Downstairs Kitchen – It was noticed that the high triple cupboard was made 7cm too wide. Tamar contacted the Kitchen company and they said they would shrink one cupboard to make it fit. Tamar refused saying it would look silly. They are now fixing the whole thing.

Kitchen Counters (shayish) – The shayish for the downstairs kitchen will be installed after the upstairs kitchen is completed so that the company providing the Caesar stone can correctly measure the upstairs kitchen for our counter tops at the same time.

Plumbing – We have ordered from the States a 220V waste disposal unit. It comes out with shipping and tax a little cheaper than the pre-tax price here. If bought here we would also have to pay for installation, but we are assuming that it will be installed by the Kablan now as part of his plumbing costs. If not – I will do it!

Paint – The ceilings are now looking good and first coats are going up on the walls. As they are doing 5 coats of paint I have no idea how much they have completed.

Hammock – We selected the natural rope (rather that a crass colour from a plastic cover on the rope) with black connectors used to hold it altogether. The rail to hold the hammock on the wall has been installed and needs to be painted. We think it is going to be black.

Network – It was suddenly noticed that all the cables for our hard-wired network came out in a small cupboard that was too small for a network hub. So we have devised a method to move the connectors over to our cloakroom cupboard and we will put the hub there instead. This has required a little shaping of the entrance and may require us to install an extra mezuza.

Furniture – We have ordered our sofas, ottoman and dining table. We still have to add the extra material and also a couple more ottomans that need to be made to measure. We have bought a couple of antique chairs that will be stained to match the walnut and will be re-uphostered with the same material as the sofa. These will be sitting in the corner of the lounge. We have found counter (bar) stools but have not ordered these yet as we are waiting for sample patches of material so that we can match them to the other furniture in the immediate vicinity.

Curtains – We met with Tamar in the curtain suppliers. We have made decisions of which style curtains/blinds we want in all of our windows. We selected a few fabrics and this is now on hold until the windows have been installed – hopefully the beginning of March.

I was ready to create a new blog on Sunday night – but decided to postpone as lots was planned in the house yesterday. I will start with the stairs – so you can see our steps in the right direction:

Tiling/Stairs – The second flight of outside stairs plus the steps between the upper and lower outside areas by our lounge have been completed. The bulk of outside tiling has now been completed. The only tile work left are some of the edges (inside and out), fixing of damaged exterior house stone and the grouting. For some reason, they have also tiled the area under where the fish tank will be going.

Sanding – The walls have been sanded down and they are now working on the niches and the areas for the lights. There have been points when it is has been impossible to walk into the property with the amount of dust in the air. My car is constantly dirty with white footprints where the dust had stuck to my shoes.

Painting – Our kitchen area had its first coat of paint. The colour (a light grey almost greige) is fantastic. The inside of the kitchen windows have been painted white. They have also started to paint the ceiling in white.

Kitchen – The carpenter came and did measurements, made comments and discussed changes with us. He finalised the already finalised plans and has started working on the kitchen. Now that the final plans have been put in – the team measured out all the plugs and gas points and decided to move a few slightly to better fit the kitchen. As we changed the toe kick from 12cm to 10cm we cannot put a cleaning robot within the toe kick anymore and therefore we have cables for an electrical plug that is not required. The toe kick is lower as we want the surface to be slightly lower than normal. This may make a future issue with dishwashers as all integrated dishwashers are designed to work with a 12cm toe kick, there are some which will work with 10cm but possibly not all of them. It will be left for a time when it may be needed. The carpenter also measured out the doors that he would be making plus the bathroom vanity cabinets as these are the bits that need to go in before we move in (at the end of March).

Basement Kitchen – This has now been installed. It was done by a kitchen company as they are cheaper than a good carpenter. The quality looks good, but I am not happy that the doors are lining up well enough. We spoke to the company and they said that they will tweak them once the counter top is in. As we have not ordered the counter tops yet, I am not sure when that will be.

Wardrobes – The wardrobes were measured yesterday and they will be installed at the beginning of March.

Furniture – We have decided on a Century table and sofas. We are just waiting on a price for some ottomans that we need to have built to fit. We are also not sure of the exact amount of spare material we need to order as we wish to re-upholster our existing dining chairs and we are waiting for the upholstery person to quote for us. We will order this as soon as we have the information. We decided not to get the counter stools from the states as the prices were just astronomical.

Beds – Exact measurements were taken for our headboard. This will be installed with the bed just before we move in.

Fireplace – The fireplace company came back to re-paint the rusty metal. I am hoping that this will solve the problem. We will find out when we start using it.

Lights – I collected all the lights and they are now being stored in our rented flat (apartment) so that they do not get damaged.

Doors – We are still waiting for the sample internal door. It may be delayed slightly as I heard that the person dealing with our order has just got up from sitting shiva. I wish him a long, healthy life.

Electricity – We now have an invoice for the change to the electricity – it is expensive! I tried to pay it this morning, but was told that I couldn’t as it hadn’t been opened for payment yet. We are also moving the electricity box to the front wall so that the electricity company can easily access it to take readings.

Railings – The interior stairway railings have been completed – but they are not being installed yet to protect them.
Most of the outside railings have been started, but we have asked them to hold off for the meantime on the front railing as we are moving the electricity box there. We are also making a space for the dustbin (garbage bin) and therefore do not want to do these railings until we know exactly what this area will look like. The railings company (A.Y.L.) are going to be doing a door for the dustbin as well.

Hammock – The railings guy knows someone who builds external play areas. We have received a quote and have ordered this today. We have requested a sample of the colour options for the hammock itself.

Design – As in every week, Tamar is the glue that holds everything together, makes the decisions that we request from her and keeps everything moving in the correct direction. Tamar is also taking us shopping tomorrow for curtains and possibly counter stools as well.

That’s all for now, we will do some shopping (or browsing) for the house on Friday morning as neither of us are working and the kids are in school. It will either be for the counter stools or possibly we will start looking at the bedding.

This last week was filled with mass hysteria because there was a snowstorm coming.
In fact Wednesday and Thursday the workers did not come (they told me in advance) and they are not coming today either.
Joelle and I both agree that the workers did not come due to the roads being closed. The issue is that the roads did not need to be closed at all! Joelle worked on Thursday and Friday in Ramot. Ramot is the entrance to Jerusalem for two of the main roads – the 1 and the 443. Both of which were closed (on and off) from Wednesday until Friday. In Ramot on Thursday there was no snow at all – the rain had already melted it (if there was any). On Friday it did snow whilst she was at work – but hardly even managed to settle at all. All this caused the country a major headache – the kids lots of fun as there was no school and parents a nightmare as they somehow found themselves losing 2 days of holiday from work which nobody can afford! And all of this over absolutely nothing.

Moan completed, it doesn’t actually affect us that much as the Kablan doesn’t have too much more to do before the windows are installed. So we have plenty of time. Let’s continue:

Windows : The windows have been built and are on the ship. They are expecting to be at the warehouse in Israel on the 20th February and we will be the first customer to have them installed. We should therefore have our windows completed just after the beginning of March.

Doors : Almost all measurements were taken and we are ready for the work to be started. There is one more measurement for the front door (The door measurement was not taken as some changes were needed in the work done by the Kablan)- and we need to decide on the final colour. The colour is possibly going to be linked to the railings as well. We will get there with this.

Outside Lights : We liked the outside lights that we looked at last week. We still prefer the smaller one – but understand that it will not give enough light. We will be mixing and matching the two sizes. The Kablan is happy that they will be safe outside even though they are not completely closed in. The electrics are impossible to reach by rain.

Railings : We have finalised on three different types of railings. One to be used inside (on the stairs), An open railing to be used outside in almost all areas and a single closed railing for one area between us and the basement area. Everything we chose is as simple (to look at – at least) as can be as we did not want anything that just “shouted” out to be looked at. The colours of most of this will be antique bronze. The stairs will have a wooden railing that is varnished an American Walnut colour.

Smoker/BBQ : We have found a bbq/smoker that we are thinking of buying from “Pits from JJ” but it is expensive to buy, ship and import. We have a couple of people (including the company making my railings) that will make a smoker to order. I have to decide what to do.

Wood : I continued chopping the wood – but somehow I managed to break the extremely hardy axe that I had bought. I will need to buy another one.

Mezzuzot : We have paid for our Mezzozot – and will be receiving them on Wednesday.

Carpentry : We have received quotes for our carpentry. We just have to confirm who is doing the work. Whoever we choose – this is an expensive part of the project!

Downstairs Kitchen : We still haven’t received the extra quotes for this kitchen.

Wardrobes : We have asked for a discount due to the extremely expensive fitting costs. We are waiting to hear back.

Natanel’s bed : We have seen something that is already made, we need to make time to go and have a look at it. The manufacturers/shop is somewhere near Yavne – I think.

Kablan : The kablan has completed plastering the main living area of the house. It looks good! He still has to smooth down some of the areas though. He has also continued with the spot lights. We have also chosen the final grout colour for the wooden floors.

Fireplace : We still haven’t collected the inside of the fireplace. Joelle will do it soon when she has a break from work.

Moldings : We ordered, paid for and received the moldings. They are currently in storage (in the loft) awaiting installation.

Shopping : We started looking at more depth into bar stools, sofas, coffee tables and dining tables. We will soon be ready to start some directed shopping from the on-line research that we have done.

We have a deadline of 29th March to be in the house (even if not fully completed) as that is when we have lots of friends staying for Pesach. We have no space for even one person in our small apartment that we are staying in at the moment! We are praying that we will make it.

For both of us we are in the “busiest” time of work. For Joelle the kids are all sick now and yes it is urgent to see them 20 minutes after the end of the clinic as he/she has been ill for at least three days when we didn’t bother to bring them….. For me it is the end of the year and everyone is busy making sure that their departments have every bit of information required for their year-end reporting. If there are system issues then I wouldn’t have time to think. Luckily everything has gone smoothly – and yesterday was the quietest day I have had in the whole year. Everyone was too busy to bother me!

Even though we are both busy at work – the house is coming along in leaps and bounds. I hardly know where to start. Let’s start with the thing nearest my heart – food 🙂

The smoker – I just could not get in touch with Lang, the more that I looked the more that I saw they had a name for very poor customer service and also for poor looking (but effective) welds on the less important areas of the smoker. So I decided to look further afield and at the moment I am in touch with a company called “Pits by JJ” and am hoping that I can work something out with them. Talking of smokers – I smoked ribs for the first time yesterday and it was one of the nicest and messiest meals that I have ever started a fast on! I even have left overs for supper tonight!

The garden – moving slowly inward. This is the area that has made the most movement over the last two weeks. All the outside tiling and stone areas have been prepared. This includes whitewashing plus the creation of concrete bases etc The two flower beds for the climbing plants in the social area have been built – and look great. We have decided on the stone that we wish to use for the natural stone we are using for the stairs and the area near to the entrance of the house. We have designed how we are doing the stairs. We have also started to speak about lighting of the garden stairs and also about fences and handrails for safety. This week we also took home 10 tangerines (many more left on tree) and have to pick the pomelos as well to promote extra growth. It can be a shabbat treat.

Outside lighting – I have samples of the two possible lights (they are identical but different sizes) and we need to look at them and confirm if they work for us. They are technically not waterproof – but the only way they will get wet by the electrics is through someone spraying them with water from underneath. The kablan is happy with them from a water perspective as well.

Wood – I have started to chop up the wood in a way that will be more useful to us. It is hard work as it hasn’t really dried out enough yet. I am also starting to move it into a place that is out of the way.

Railings / Fencing – Two different suppliers came to the house yesterday to show off the options that they have as well as measure to quote for the work we need. Outside we need some kind of front fence which will also be used as a separation of two different garden areas. This really is an issue as we do not like any of the options that we have been shown in either steel or aluminium. In Israel, wood is really not an ideal but we may need to use it as that is all we really like. If we do go for wood I am not looking forward to the maintenance. We also have railings on the stairs and by any drops. We will need a grill to cover an “English Window” as well as one patio window as well.

Garage – We do not wish to have a garage door and we do not have planning permission for it, so we have ordered an automatic parking barrier which will stop others using our garage. It is a small thing that will drop on the to the floor whenever we wish to park – and will stay up when the garage is empty.

Outside doors – the space for the outside French door has been finished. We started looking at doors (more about this later) and we are really struggling with the main front door. We just do not like the outside doors that are available. All the aluminium ones are as ugly as hell – and the wooden ones just will not last due to the heat.

Inside doors – We had a meeting with Hermetix at the beginning of the week where we confirmed everything that we ordered. We confirmed the door designs, chose the colours and locking mechanisms. We also selected a door handle but do not like the handles they have on option – we are going to look for a different option from the shops. All the Hermetix doors will be measured next week.

Inside railings – the guys that are doing the quote for the outside fences/railings will also be giving us a quote for the stair railings. These are going to be the simplest possible. We do not want anything that looks too fancy.

Wardrobes – We ordered the boys and our wardrobes last week. When I got home I realised that I am supposed to pay an additional payment for delivery/installation of over 10% of the build cost. Considering we are buying fitted cupboards I was not happy with this and I complained. I am awaiting a response through Tamar about this.

Interior design – talking of Tamar, she is keeping everything moving, arranging meetings and specialists to come, nagging us to make decisions and look at different options. We still do not know where she finds enough hours in the day to do everything.

Natanel’s bed – we went to one store in Talpiot but their beds were too low and looked so babyish. We wish to put a desk underneath and so it will need to have a reasonable height.

Carpentry – quotes have gone out to a couple of carpenters. We have a partial quote back from one, but we are still waiting on this – one of the most important (read expensive) areas of the project.

Kitchen – we now have a quote for a kitchen in the basement. We are waiting on another two so we have not seen it yet. We want this (and the other carpentry) to be in before the windows.

Bathroom glass – our glass person came yesterday and we realised that the glass door in our en-suite will actually hit the shower head if it is opened inwards. As we have rain showers we are not worried about water spraying too high and so we have dropped the height of the glass slightly. We had a big discussion about the shower in the kids bathroom and I said that we are staying with a double door for the boys. We do not think there is enough space if we have a single door as it is being used on a bath and not a shower.

Bathroom – There is an access panel for the air conditioning unit that was included in our bathroom that I never even knew was needed. It looks really cool and has been nicely done.

Kablan – The kablan has continued with all the tasks. Finishing off the window spaces, testing grout with our tiles (we still have to make one choice), preparing the walls for painting, electricity, completion of interior tiling and the tiling of the front upper mirpeset (balcony) amongst other things that I may not have even noticed.

Fireplace – The base that we will be using for building our fire on has been completed – I need to go and collect that early next week.

Shopping – Some extra meaty crockery has just come in that I need to collect which will allow us to take our every day numbers up to 10 place sittings. We have ordered and received some bedding, rugs, cushion, pillowcases and a clock from the Man City football team website shop to decorate Natanel’s room. The actual items were reasonably priced, but the delivery and import duties/tax doubled the price.

With the planning permission sorted we have started moving a lot faster – we will start with the windows.

Windows – The playroom and the lounge windows have now been enlarged. We now have a 3.2m wide hole in our lounge overlooking a large tree (which is blocking our view of the wadi and desert). We will be talking to the Iriya to see if we can reduce the size of this tree to give us a nicer view. The Kablan while opening up the big window found a support which wasn’t found previously and so he spoke to the engineer….

Structural engineer – The structural engineer is insisting on a support beam plus special preparations (some sort of metal tiles and drivers into the wall) for the lounge window. We were expecting this – but it hadn’t been priced just in case it wasn’t needed – oh well. He has also requested additional support for the french doors in our bedroom. This wasn’t expected or planned at all as there was already a door there (but a lot smaller – and put in without permission).

Underfloor heating and hot water – The underfloor heating has now been completed in the dining area, kitchen, hall and our bedroom. It has not been done in the lounge as the window and support have to be completed first. We have requested that this heating will not be near the piano (it damages the wood and destroys the instrument) and also not immediately next to the fish tank as it may make the fish tank temperature more complex to control.
We asked for the interior pipes for the hot water heat collectors to be copper rather than the steel that is normally used in Jerusalem. The installer has said that this is the same price but he will not give us a warranty on it. When we asked why – we were told that it was due to the fact that water freezes in Jerusalem and copper pipes burst. We told the Kablan that copper is used as standard in England where the temperature regularly drops to below freezing in the winter. It never gets down to freezing in Ma’ale Aldumim and anyway the installer can put antifreeze into the pipes as we have requested a closed system. They will get back to us! By the way, the reason that we want copper is because it is more efficient and the water gets hotter quicker.

Plumbing – The pipework in our bathroom for the sink had sunken whilst the concrete was setting. I walked in during the week to see the poor plumber drilling out the pipes (through and around the underwater heating pipes) in order to re-set them. It was noticed when they were about to get to the tiling.

Tiling – the tiler has now almost completed our bedroom, bathroom, cupboard area, downstairs entrance, dining room and kitchen. He has also carried on with the stairs. Nothing has been completed to the edges as the walls have not been finished and they wish to get a perfect edge.

Kablan – the kablan is looking for grey outside tiles for us to use for the flooring. This may take a while as the natural Israeli grey tiles are of poor quality. Israel mainly does good quality beige colours. He will also be collecting the lights slowly as required from our supplier when he is ready to install them.

Hifi – I made a mistake in last weeks blog. I mentioned some lighting that the electrician had put in the ceiling of the lounge. I was wrong – these are the cables for the speakers. All the cables for the speakers appear to have been installed now.

Basement bathroom – Looks great! This has now been cleaned up and a temporary toilet and hand washing facilities have been installed for the workers (after 3 months!). The doorway has also had a plastic sheet attached to help keep it clean (and I assume for some privacy as well).

Carpentry – The design has now been fully completed and sent off for quotes. We are waiting in dread to hear back as this is likely to be the second most expensive bill (after the Kablan).

Hi all,
Well, it has been 2 long weeks with the first week being very quiet. The second one picked up drastically. So, eyes down and look in for the latest chance to see if we have managed a full house!

Planning Permission – As I wrote in my last post, we had received planning permission in theory – but had to wait for and pay an “Agra” (Agra is a payment to a government office – thank you Morfix). So, I waited (very patiently) for a whole 4 days and then went to the planning office to ask why I hadn’t received this very important documentation. They said that it had been sent! They kindly (after a firm, but polite, push) gave me the “Payment Number”. I took this number to the local council payments office and paid them just over 3000NIS (Is this daylight robbery or what?) and took the receipt back to the planning office. The planning office then asked where the second sheet was from the payments office. I said that I hadn’t been given one and they (thankfully) said that they would sort it out. I was told that the planning permission would take about 3-4 days and that they would call me. 4 days later – the Agra request for payment finally turned up in the post – to be stored in the paperwork dustbin known as a filing cabinet. I phoned the planning department and asked why I hadn’t heard, just to be told that it wasn’t ready and that I should just be patient. I have been patient for over 8 months now (mainly due to the inadequacies of the different structural engineers) – so a few more days shouldn’t be too difficult. The following day, I received a call saying that the planning permission had arrived. I thought “Thank G-d” and called the kablan to see if he was around to collect it (he wasn’t allowed to do the work unless this document was in his hands). He wasn’t – but he especially came back to Ma’ale Adumim to collect it as agreed with the planning department. The planning department was closed! After some phone calls, I was given the name of a specific person in a different department that could give the document to our Kablan. All was finally saved, and we could now get on with our work and ORDER the windows.

Windows – As the windows follow on, I will continue with these. We had another two or three meetings at the house to finalise the windows. We didn’t bother to go to any of these and they were handled exclusively by the designer and the kablan. After an awful lot of work by everybody we received a final order from Andersen Windows and we looked though it. Tamar queried some of it and we didn’t like the look of one specific window. After a two-hour email discussion with different options going back and forth we decided to return to the original option because it was a lot cheaper. Once everything was finished (again) we arranged for the payment and we hope that we will catch the shipment which we were originally told will arrive by the end of January. We have since been told that the factory will be closed over Xmas and so it will now be a week later! I will update you on this in about 2 months!
As an aside two of the window spaces still need to be enlarged.

Tiling – The tiler has completed a bit more, but as we have to wait for the underfloor heating to be finished before he can continue he has gone on to another project and will return in a week or two.

Kablan – The kablan has been working hard on the organisation of different specialists, tiling, windows, removing security bars and the front door etc. He has added marble window ledges at the request of the window company and he is going to be adding a supporting beam to our bedroom door at the request of the structural engineer. We also noticed a couple of very minor tile/Caesar Stone issues (one that we later found out was caused by a block dropped by a worker from a height onto the Caesar stone strip) which are going to be fixed soon.

Underfloor Heating / Hot water – The underfloor heating was supposed to be installed last week – but was put off by the supplier. He started yesterday and has already done quite a lot of work on this. We are still waiting to find out if the hot water collectors are going to be copper as we wish or the more standard steel. For some reason he has placed heating under our cupboards and I am worried that this will warp the carpentry – I have sent off a query and am waiting for a response.

Fireplace – Talking of heating, the third of our heating methods is a fireplace in the lounge (The main is the air conditioning, the second just for select areas is the underfloor heating). Tuesday, we finally found someone who can build the fireplace as we wished and he started the following day (We were lucky with the heavy rain as he pushed us in and delayed some outside work instead). They worked on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday! It was only supposed to be two days work – but the chimney stack was off centre and this slowed things down. There was also a leak into the chimney caused by the deficient pointing around the top of the chimney stack.

Carpentry – We have spent a lot of time over the last week or two going over this. We have finalised the plans (apart from one set of cupboard doors) and have confirmed materials and colours. We have also (as it is connected) decided on paint colour options for the walls. We have requested large samples of about 10 paint colours to be used in different places and when we receive these we will make our final paint decisions (We have decided on using magnetic paint on the wall between the desk and the bookcases (above the desk) in the study as a place we can store notes with magnets.

Sheets – Before we actually looked at the paint colours, we started looking at bedding. Our oldest has decided that he wants his room to be a “shrine” to Man City FC – so he is going to have everything in sky blue with appropriate bedding, cushion covers, wall clocks and rugs as appropriate. It is actually not too expensive to buy this stuff direct from the club (as long as you ignore the shipping cost of 40GBP). Our kitchen cabinets are in a design called Tottenham (a far superior football club) and so we will be having lots of Spurs vs City games in the house.
We looked on the American “Bed, Bath and Beyond” online store for the rest of the bedding – and were disgusted to see that they only sold sizes that were a lot bigger than a standard single duvet covers. We found what we like – but have not yet found where they are sold in a size that we need!

Lights – We have finally paid for our main light order – we just have to find (and confirm) the less standard lights. The electrician has done some work towards the LED lights in the lounge.

Electricity – This naturally follows on from the lights. The electricity meter has now been moved outside the house and onto a wall in the garden. This is quite ugly and I want to see if we can change the position and make it smaller.

The Rain – As most of you may be aware – we had a lot of rain at the end of last week. This is a blessing both for Israel and us. It is great for us because it showed up issues that we wouldn’t have know about until too late. There are a few leaks coming into the house which needs to be repaired and the stone cladding of a concrete wall (between different garden levels) collapsed as well. We are happy that this occurred now and not just after we have done the decorating!

Exterior concrete and stonework – We are talking about the floors here. We have confirmed that we are using plain concrete (in different colours) for the play area and within the garage. We are doing all the steps in a specific stone – and this means that the area off this stone will be the same colour. We have a few other areas where we need to decide whether we are using the stone or a decorative (ie fake stone) concrete. We are moving along on this.

Tree stump – In the “social” area of the garden which we are planning to use as a cooking corner there was a tree stump that was in the way. The gardener tried to remove it with a crane – but he broke countless straps and had to give up. The concrete guys knew someone who would remove this stump. The guy came on Friday morning and literally ground away the stump (vertically) a little at a time until he finally removed it. This was a lot of work – and it was obviously noisy as our neighbours complained about it to us the following day. These neighbours (the son that doesn’t live there – not the mother) complains constantly. So, we told him that the tree was removed at our cost at the request of his mother – and the incidental noise will not re-occur. It obviously will not re-occur as the stump is not there anymore – so the comment was non-nonsensical but included in our relatively insincere apology. If he wasn’t such a complainer over nothing as well as saying how amazing he is for “helping us” in ways that are not actually helpful then we would care more , but …..

Smoker – The guy that managed the fireplace has a brother-in-law that builds both smokers and barbecues to design. We have to make measurements and finalise our design and send it off to him for a quote. We will see what he comes back with.

That’s quite enough excitement for a fortnight. We will update you again soon,

We have been continuing to move at a reasonable pace – but with the same single issue holding us back.

Planning permission: Our plans went to the “va’ada”/planning meeting on Thursday. We have been told that we will receive the answer by mail either yesterday or today. It wasn’t in yesterday’s post, we will check when we get home tonight. If it is not there then the structural engineer has told us to contact him and he will see what he can do.

Lighting: We spent a couple of hours in a lighting warehouse selecting the main lights that we will be using. Tamar actually had two meetings with them. The first was in the morning where she dismissed all the options we had already said we didn’t like. She did forget some lights that we brought over from the UK – and she has removed these lights from the quote. We still need to go shopping for the more fancy lights (dining area).

Integrated sound system: We met up with the sound guy at the house on Friday. We discussed the exact placement of everything as well as what we wished to connect to the system. He was slightly perplexed to hear that we have neither yes / hot nor a satellite box (cable TV etc) which is normally used as a gathering point for the sound system. He will be adding a streamer box to compensate for this. Afterwards, he came back to our current house to look at our current “boxes” and found that he has no way of connecting them to the system – so we will need to add a new DVD (or Blu-ray) player which was not planned. We should at least be able to use this to play any CD’s that we haven’t converted to mp3 yet. We also had to pay a deposit so that he could cover his initial purchases.

Alarm: We were looking through the plans and realised that the alarm did not have any panic buttons. We know that a panic option is available through the alarm keypads but we have to decide whether or not to add physical buttons or not. We definitely need one by our bedroom (which leads on to a hidden garden) but not sure about the front door.

Air conditioning: All the copper pipes are now in place (this was actually completed last week) and four of the internal units have been put on the walls. They have not yet been connected to the piping.

Walls / Finishing: Plans for closing off the pipes in the attic/loft area have been given to the Kablan. We are just creating a “new” wall using plaster board/ sheetrock and they will then be finished properly. We are not putting in any niches as in this room it really isn’t necessary.

Electricity / Plumbing: The electricity conduits have now all been put into place and the plumbing (cold/hot water pipes – not the hot water tanks nor the underfloor heating) with the exception of 1 garden point that is still open.

Tiling: The loft area has now been tiled. We put the American walnut wood tiles in the play area and cheap/simple tiles in the storage area. The wood tiles are so good that friends of ours that looked at the house over Shabbat thought that we had put down real wood. Tamar has given an alternative tiling plan to the Kablan as the tile manufacture suggests not to use the fish-bone design we originally wanted due to “lippage”. We are awaiting a full explanation of lippage and then we will decide whether or not to listen to the tile manufacturers.

Concrete: we still haven’t managed to look at the concrete example that we were sent as we had to look at the Carpentry plans on Friday (more about this later).

Kablan: We have now finished a “stage” of the work – electrical conduits and basic plumbing so according to the contract we paid the Kablan 30% of the contract price. Actually, we were supposed to pay 30% – but only paid 20% as we were expecting him to be further through by now (he is held up by the planning permissions of course) and the payment went through late as the bank’s computer systems were down on the day that the payment was planned. The payment went through today to arrive tomorrow! We will pay the other 10% in about 2 weeks once the window spaces have been enlarged and the windows have been ordered.

Design: Tamar has been working hard on the designs This can be split into three main areas:
Carpentry : We had a 3 hour meeting with Tamar on Wednesday and looked over the designs that were created. We commented on the work and took it back home to look over in more detail. We have made some changes and sent this back to Tamar just over a day ago. This included clarification requests, measurements of items we wish to store, small changes to doors etc, additional pieces and the removal of a large piece as it was not what we wanted due to a small misunderstanding about what we meant when we said we wanted a bookcase on the stairs. Tamar also sent us additional queries that we will discuss tonight. We will be spending at least an hour tonight looking through door/cupboard handles. The delights of carpentry! Once all this is completed Tamar will update the plans, await our approval and then send everything off to companies to have it priced out.
Kitchen: This is actually part of the carpentry design but so large that it requires a section of its own here. During our meeting Wednesday we sat in a kitchen carpentry store and used the opportunity to look at all the different options available to us (inside the units) from this company. It helped us decide which options to incorporate into the design.
Glass: Tamar sent us the design work for the shower glass dividers and 4 of the mirrors. She got us quotes and we went for a cheaper option with someone who does very good work – but not the best. He was at least a third cheaper and this wasn’t a cheap purchase. There are still 2 glass doors and maybe some mirrors we require. These extras are not so urgent as they will not stop work continuing.
Tiling: Due to a manufacturer “requirement” Tamar had to create a new tiling plan for the main floor of the house as mentioned above under tiling. It is up to us to decide whether we listen to the manufacturer or not.

We are leaving this post on a planning cliff hanger. We couldn’t even make it more exciting if it was planned. OK, we could but today/tomorrow we will find out what is happening with the planning permission and how it affects the rest of the work.